PreP drug Truvada lauded by gay community
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Photo: AP Photo/Gilead Sciences Photo: AP Photo/Gilead Sciences
Durban - A gay South African man on Monday recounted his experience of being on pre-exposure prophylaxis (PreP) drug Truvada, calling it a “miracle” that could help the gay community from contracting HIV.
Truvada was already used in treating patients that are HIV positive, but in 2012, clinical trials showed that if used correctly, it could also prevent HIV infection in high-risk individuals who were HIV negative.
Speaking at a session about meeting the HIV prevention needs of African gay men at the International AIDS Conference 2016, Siya Mnyanda, a Johannesburg-based PreP advocate and commentator on social justice issues, said that he was both proudly African and proudly gay and that it was possible to be both.
“I started taking PreP in the form of Truvada as a choice. We all have that choice. When I was exposed to the HIV virus five years ago, it opened my mind to the medical interventions available. I wanted to use PreP to limit my exposure to the virus,” he said.
Mnyanda said that his gay friends didn’t see PreP as a viable option because “the world’s approach has always been to use condoms. It seemed reckless to a lot of my friends to not use condoms”.
He said the narrative appeared to be that only condoms or post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) – as opposed to pre-exposure (PreP) – was safe.
PEP is an anti-retroviral treatment that reduces the chances of contracting HIV after exposure to infected blood or sexual contact.
Mnyanda said that when he started PreP he thought it “would be easy” because he was well informed and had medical aid.
His perceptions were tested when he found out that the first doctor he approached knew even less about the treatment than he did.
“I ended up educating my doctor about what PreP was and how it should be used. He didn’t know the tests I had to undergo before taking it and he didn’t know about its possible side effects.
“The reason I decided to start talking about PreP was because if it was so difficult for me to get the correct treatment, even though I was educated about it and had access, I could only imagine how difficult it would be for someone who didn’t have the access I did.
“I simply don’t understand why this miracle drug is not used by more people,” he said.
While PreP has been punted as a powerful HIV prevention tool, particularly if combined with condom use, users of the medication must take the drug continuously on a daily basis.
Speaking during the same session, Stefan Baral of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said that clinical trials conducted in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth on young gay men, which were ongoing, had “not seen a single man infected” since they had started taking PreP.
African News Agency